


Fool Me Once

by pallidiflora



Category: Persona 4
Genre: Abusive Relationship, Age Difference, Bad Ending, Coercion, Dubious Consent, M/M, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-17
Updated: 2012-12-17
Packaged: 2017-11-21 08:36:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/595699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pallidiflora/pseuds/pallidiflora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A teenager in love is the worst thing to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fool Me Once

**Author's Note:**

> Set after P4: Golden's accomplice ending. Companion piece of sorts to Entrench, hence the somewhat similar narrative structure/scenario.

Souji visits Inaba in September.

The leaves haven't yet begun to turn, save for a faint yellowing at the edges, but still the fog is rolling in again, hanging heavy just above the pavement. It's Saturday at noon when Dojima picks him up at the train station; this time Souji's only got a small suitcase, which Nanako insists on carrying for him, holding it on her lap in the car ride home. She stares at him, fawn-like, until Dojima says, "cut it out, you act like you've never seen him before."

He stays in his old room, which Dojima has converted into office space; his old futon is still in the corner, though, his old shelves covered in Nanako's plasticine figures and pottery projects. He's got enough clothes for a week's stay, which he lays out, folded, on the top shelf next to a lopsided vase painted with daisies.

Already his friends have been texting him, restrained but eager in Naoto's case, effusive in Rise's. _We all need to get together ASAP! :)_ , she says, but he hasn't responded, he doesn't know what to say. They are too real without the distance, he can no longer relegate them to pleasant memories, admiring them from afar as if from outside museum glass, as though they are on shelves.

Adachi hasn't texted or called since he arrived; he's not sure if he's relieved or disappointed.

* * *

The first time Adachi called (end of March, pansies sprouting up between the snow on city walkways) he had said "you know, it's nice to know you're not a nose-to-the-grindstone shit like I thought you were."

Souji's throat constricted at this, but at the same time he felt strangely happy, elated almost, insides buoyed as though on water.

"The way Dojima-san went on about you," Adachi continued, "it was like you crapped gold bricks or something. Straight As this, top of the class that, blah blah blah. But you're not really like that, right?"

He had dug a fingernail into a groove in his desk and said nothing. He supposed he wasn't—otherwise how could he have done it?

"I guess not," he said at last. It sounded so final.

* * *

On the first night Dojima picks up take-out and they eat messily, catching up; he asks about school, Nanako tells him about how much she likes grade two except for how the school's milk tastes funny, Souji tells them how his parents are doing. Dojima drinks a little beer until he's called in to work, and Souji and Nanako clean up after dinner, sorting the styrofoam and plastic containers from the soda cans.

Like this, it feels normal. If he can keep it this way for the whole week, he will be fine, he will emerge unscathed, relatively speaking.

The next afternoon Dojima sits watching the news, grunting or nodding assent, and he says, "I should have Adachi over for dinner tonight. I think he'd be happy to see you."

Souji can feel his tongue going numb—like he could bite through it and not feel it, only taste the blood. The tips of his fingers tingle, his stomach clenches.

"How does that sound?" Dojima says this like he's doing him a favour, like taking him to an amusement park or buying him an ice cream cone. He must see right through him, he must be transparent, all his organs on display—especially his liver, purplish and off-white and messy unlike in textbooks.

Adachi must have seen it too: his insides floating, suspended, for all to see.

"Good," Souji says. He can't feel his hands.

* * *

By April they had fallen into a routine—Adachi would call him at ten o'clock on Wednesdays and Fridays. Sometimes he'd laugh and say "I still can't believe you," sometimes he'd say nothing at all, breathing faintly.

One night in May he said, "I know why you did it, y'know."

Souji said nothing.

"It's 'cause you're hot for me, right? Got a little crush?" He didn't wait for a reply. "I gotta say, I'm flattered. You're pretty hot, I'd totally fuck you. Love that school uniform look. Girls pull it off better, but still—hey, you still got your Yasogami get-up?"

Finally Souji answered. "Yeah," he said. It was a simple statement of fact, he hadn't known what else to say.

"Good—there's just something about that one, way hotter than my high school's. Lemme tell you, I've totally thought about that before, y'know, you bent over a desk or whatever. I mean, you're no Mayumi Yamano, but still. Damn."

Souji wished more than anything that he wouldn't say her name—to name something is to make it real, it gives it gravity. Better that she was just a picture on a TV, two-dimensional.

"Anyway, you should wear it for me sometime. When you visit Inaba next, I mean. When's that gonna be?"

Souji said, "I don't know."

"Too bad."

After Adachi hung up, Souji had rolled onto his stomach and masturbated shamefully, humping his pillow, imagining Adachi inside him.

* * *

His uncle has a bag of chestnuts in his fridge, along with a half-empty, few-month-old bottle of mirin, so Souji decides to make chestnut rice—a suitable autumn dish, it will be appropriate, it will please everyone. More than anything he wants something to do with his hands: washing the rice, measuring the sauces, the soothing repetitive task of peeling the chestnuts with a knife. If he keeps himself thus occupied, he won't have to think, he can just listen to the _shoosh-shoosh-shoosh_ of the hard white grains sloughing off dirt, clouding the water until they come away clean.

He places all the ingredients in the rice cooker, slowly, with exaggerated care, and presses the button.

Half an hour later he doles out the portions as though he's in a trance, counting the number of chestnuts in each bowl, making sure it's even—this feels important for some reason. He sets them on the table with the chopsticks, focusing on making them exactly parallel. It's 6:30; Adachi was supposed to be here by now, perhaps he isn't coming. Is he relieved or disappointed?

"I'm hungry," Nanako says, lying face-down on the couch. "Can't we start without him?"

Dojima sighs. "Let's wait another fifteen minutes, Nanako. After that, he's on his own."

Ten minutes later someone is pounding on the door. Souji goes to answer it, looking down at his feet, putting one in front of the other. He opens the door and there he is, looking more or less the same as ever: cheap haircut, uniform not quite right on him—though is he just imagining that, now that he knows what he knows? He's got a brown paper bag in his arm, slightly stained with grease spots at the bottom; with his free hand he takes off his shoes and drops them, haphazard, in the entryway.

Souji's chest clenches, he wants to straighten them.

As Adachi emerges from the shadows of the foyer, he gives Souji a sidelong glance, mouth curling, and as he passes him by his hand brushes against Souji's ass.

"Hey kiddo," Adachi says to Nanako as he enters the living room, she grimaces at him. "Sorry I'm a little late, Dojima-san, I missed my bus." He places his bag down in the middle of the table between the bowls of rice like an offering. "I stopped at Junes and grabbed some croquettes though!"

"Oh, for god's sake, did you just pick those at random?"

"I thought they'd make a nice after-dinner snack!" He looks over at Souji, who doesn't meet his eyes. "You agree with me, don't you?"

"I don't know."

"Nobody's ever on my side," Adachi sighs.

They sit down. Adachi waits for Souji to sit first and then sits beside him, under the table their knees touch. Souji would shift away, but he's frozen in place, Adachi's knee is pinning him down, insect-like.

They make small talk as they eat. Adachi is telling Dojima how they should get a dog and Nanako is saying _can we, can we please?_ , but Souji can hardly swallow, it's like eating glue and styrofoam. Dojima and Nanako are arguing about the dog now, _I don't want to hear it Nanako not at the dinner table, but dad_ , and when they're not looking, Adachi smiles at him, brows and shoulders raised, as if to say _what can I do?_

Under the table his hand slips onto Souji's knee, squeezing.

* * *

The last time Adachi called him it was the Wednesday before he left.

"Dojima-san told me you're coming to visit this week," he had said. "How come you never said anything?"

"I don't know," Souji said. "I guess it just slipped my mind."

"It slipped your mind? What kind of stupid bullshit excuse is that?"

Souji says nothing.

"I'd almost think you don't want to see me. You found some other guy in the city to fuck you, is that it?"

Quietly: "no."

"Well, whatever. You better tell me next time."

"Okay," Souji says before Adachi can hang up.

* * *

It's after 10:30, they have eaten the croquettes, which were oily and faintly fish-tasting. Nanako has gone to bed and Dojima, sober for once, has nearly passed out on the couch, face in a pillow, mimicking Nanako's earlier pose. Earlier on she and Souji had cleaned up while Adachi and Dojima watched baseball; the house is clean, the only noise coming from the TV, a late night talk show buzzing on low volume. Souji gets up to go to the washroom, and when he returns Adachi is waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs.

"Why don't you come back to my apartment?" Adachi says, quiet so Dojima won't hear, not that there's much chance of that. Still, better safe than sorry—something he knows well by now.

Panic rises in Souji's throat like a bubble; buoyed. "What for?"

"Don't be dumb, it's not cute." Adachi closes the distance between them, sliding a hand up the back of Souji's leg. "You've been waiting for this for like a year, haven't you?"

The worst part is that it's true: he has.

"Just let me get something," he says at last, and disappears up the stairs again; he returns a minute later with a grey plastic bag. Adachi says nothing about this, just steps into the blue TV-glow of the living room.

"Hey Dojima-san," he calls, "I've got somethin' I want to show Souji-kun at my place, mind if I take him for a little while? He won't be long."

"Do whatever you want," Dojima mumbles into his pillow. "Just have him back before midnight."

They talk about him over his head, like he's a dog or a piece of furniture; Adachi puts a hand on his shoulder and steers him out the door, his legs move mechanically.

The buses are still running at this hour, and they only have to wait about five minutes; Adachi holds an umbrella over both of their heads, tapping his foot and humming off-key, glancing at Souji every now and then with a half-smile like he's a kindly older brother. For all the world they could be brothers, coworkers, best friends. _Partners._

The bus is practically empty, so they sit at the back; Adachi runs his hand up and down Souji's thigh, stopping each time just short of his groin.

* * *

Adachi's building is a short distance away by bus, squat and flat-roofed, nondescript. His apartment is a mess, unsurprisingly, instant ramen containers on every surface, undershirts and boxers thrown over the backs of chairs. On the coffee table is a porno mag, flipped open to the centrefold, whose eyes have been scribbled over with blue pen; there is also an ashtray filled with old cigarette butts.

Adachi locks his door behind him, tosses his keys into a tin on a table next to the entryway. Souji is standing stock-still in the middle of the hallway, and again Adachi closes the distance between them. He takes him by the chin and kisses him, dry as rice at first, then he draws Souji's bottom lip into his mouth, slick, biting down.

"That your first time being kissed?" he says, drawing back.

"No." A statement of fact.

"That so." Adachi looks expressionless in the dim hall light. "Should've figured, you being Mr. Popular and all."

He grips the back of his neck, too tight, and slides his other hand off Souji's shoulder, down toward his belt buckle, before Souji says, "wait."

Adachi's face crumples in on itself. "You're not seriously—"

"No, I just... let me go to the bathroom first."

"Make it quick, I don't have all fucking night," Adachi calls to him as he goes, straight-backed, bag dangling from one wrist.

Five minutes later he returns to the living room, where Adachi sits on the couch. Souji is dressed in his Yasogami High uniform, slightly rumpled but buttoned to the neck. Adachi begins to laugh.

"I can't believe it, you actually wore it! You're one of a kind, you know that?"

Adachi spreads his legs, he's already half-hard, Souji can see it; he wonders how much of this has to do with him and how much of it is purely circumstantial, like getting a hard-on during a fast food commercial. Already he is beginning to feel ridiculous, he might as well be wearing period costume.

Adachi jerks his head. "Come here."

* * *

They end up on Adachi's futon, Adachi on top of him, moving against him, no finesse, just rutting. He fumbles for the button of Souji's pants, and Souji can't help but tense, arms poised to push him away.

"I just wanna fuck you, that's all," Adachi says, sucking at his neck. "Come on. It's not a big deal."

Souji says, "okay," so quiet he can hardly hear himself. Not for the first time he takes the path of least resistance.

Adachi doesn't bother undressing, just unzips his work slacks and takes his dick out, as though he's merely pausing to take a piss—as though he intends for it to be over sooner rather than later, like jerking off in the morning before getting out of bed. He slicks himself up, almost absently, a preliminary affair that doesn't seem to matter all that much to him.

"Wait," Souji says, hand on Adachi's wrist. "Do you have a condom?"

" _Do you have a condom?_ " Adachi repeats in falsetto. "Gimme a break, don't act like a chick. I'm clean, and I'm sure as hell not gonna knock you up."

He laughs at his own joke.

"I've always wanted to try this," he continues. "None of the girls I ever fucked let me do it without one. They never let me try anal either. What the fuck is up with that?"

He doesn't know what to say to this, so he says nothing.

Adachi places a pillow under Souji's hips, his hands on the backs of his thighs, and pushes inside him. This time there is no _that your first time?_ He doesn't have to ask, he already knows. Souji wants to say _you're hurting me_ but it comes out as a long thin exhale, wordless—besides, he knows what Adachi would say: _this is what you wanted, isn't it?_

And it is.

He clenches his jaw, breathing shallowly through his nose, trying not to whimper, and Adachi pants, "come on, the least you could do is moan for me."

He knows what he must be thinking: _like fucking a dead tuna, just lying there with his mouth open, like he didn't know._ He must be thinking he's some kind of idiot. Souji groans, voice cracking, barely above a whisper and more a sound of pain than anything, but Adachi breathes _that's right_ against his neck and fucks into him faster.

It _is_ over sooner rather than later. Souji hasn't come yet, in fact he's half-soft as Adachi pulls out of him, leaving him feeling wet and open; Adachi hovers over him, balancing himself on both arms, trapping him.

"I want to see you get yourself off," he says. He's still catching his breath, but he says this almost neutrally—it occurs to Souji he might be too tired to do it himself, or more probably too lazy, beyond the point of caring. It makes his throat constrict.

Finally he manages to wring an orgasm out of himself, as though he's a wet dishcloth, more relief than pleasure, almost painful.

* * *

Later Adachi lies back on his futon, pants still on and unbuttoned, the smoke from his second cigarette curling toward the ceiling.

"You know where the bus stop is, right? Just around the corner."

Souji walks there alone, getting soaked; he has left his umbrella at Adachi's, which feels now like it might as well be the surface of the moon. When he gets home, well after midnight, he peels his uniform off; it's too wet to fold, even through the rain it smells like sex: a furtive, melancholy smell, like a coatlocker. He balls it up, still damp, and stuffs it back into the plastic bag; afterward he throws it in the garbage.

**Author's Note:**

> But right now you are dumb.  
> And I love your stupidity,  
> The blind mirror of it. I look in  
> And find no face but my own, and you think that's funny.  
> -For a Fatherless Son, Sylvia Plath


End file.
